The Elite Trio- short stories
by FFabeonG
Summary: Read on for several short stories focused around the "Elite Trio"- Saesee Tiin, Agen Kolar and Kit Fisto; 1) Right before his final duel, Yoda has to reflect on life and death... 2) Kit and Agen discover there's more to their stern friend than meets the eye... 3) Dark Side AU...
1. Fleeting

**Fleeting**

Grand Masters of the Jedi Order did not hesitate. Especially not before a battle; not before a battle that had been over 800 years in the making. And so Yoda was not hesitating, he was just…pausing. Standing, leaning on his gnarled wooden stick, his eyes closed and ears pricked, asking the Force what he must do. The fight that lay before him, through those emblazoned doors into the Supreme Chancellor's meeting room, was the ultimate test, the grand finale possibly, the culmination of everything Yoda had been taught and had himself taught to generation after generation of padawans. He could not lose.

And so the Grand Master paused, and asked the Force what he must do to prepare himself any further for what lay ahead. But on the contrary, the gently-tugging hand of the Force pointed behind him, in the opposite direction to the meeting room where the shadow oozed and Yoda faced. Yoda felt no confusion. He merely obeyed, treading with quiet footsteps so as not to be heard by the Sith lord in the building, and approached the sleek silver door that lead to the office. Then the door slid open noiselessly, and Yoda stopped.

"Why…" He whispered, out loud but to the Force. _Why bring him here, why show him this now, why now of all times?!_ Taking a step forward, Yoda stared down at the fallen Jedi.

Kit Fisto was lying on his side, slightly curled in on himself, his lidless eyes staring without seeing. One arm was draped uselessly over the bloodless gash through his chest. He looked vulnerable, almost child-like in death. Yoda crouched down and took the Nautolan's cold hand in his own, carefully observing his face upon which the well-known smile still rested. Then he moved on.  
Agen Kolar's eyes were closed, and his lightsaber had tumbled far out of reach. His braided hair cascaded around his shoulders, and there was no tension in his muscles, no sign of the tenacity which had carried him through many a battle or the stress which the war had wrought on all of them. In fact, if it weren't for the hole burnt through his chest, the Zabrak might have been asleep. Yoda knelt, and brushed a strand of hair away from his eyes, remembering how that had always irritated him. Then he forgot, and stood up.  
Saesee Tiin was slumped by a wall pillar, his coarse hands clenched desperately as though he had clutched at life as it was ripped away from him. And yet his face showed no pain; instead there were no creased lines of frowning in his forehead, no furrowed brow and no deliberately downturned mouth. If anything he had only ever looked this content while behind the controls of his starfighter. Yoda reached over and gently closed the Iktochi's eyelids, completing the transcendency of a Jedi who craved peace. Then he turned back.

Now Yoda knew why the Force had pulled him there. Tears he had restrained in the face of young Kenobi's open grief back at the Temple now trickled down his aged face and he allowed it. But with every step out of that room the tears dried, with every step the Force siphoned off a little grief, with every step the Grand Master straightened up until he was back where he started, paused in front of the emblazoned door. He took a breath, and mentally nodded to the Force. _Ready I am._

The Force did not reply. It only opened the door.


	2. By the Spiral

**By the Spiral**

His cloak sweeping behind him, Saesee Tiin strode swiftly down the stairs from the main quarters of the Jedi Temple towards the flight hanger, his head ringing with the arguments- _sorry, heated discussions, Jedi don't argue do they now? -_ of the Jedi still up in the Temple corridors. This war was getting to everyone's heads, but Skywalker… _that boy is concerning_ , Saesee thought, rubbing his left horn absently. To see him so aggressive, so vicious, even verging on vengeful when in debate with a council member was clear proof for the Iktochi that even the Chosen One was not invulnerable from the burdens of war.

Rounding the corner towards the hanger that held his personal starfighter, Saesee halted in his tracks. He could hear…voices. Very familiar voices. His heart began to thump in his chest; he had come here for a break from people, and the last thing he needed right now was for those two to find out more around that starfighter than they had to. But he was too late; as the Iktochi approached further he could hear their voices.

"Why does it have those thin hairs coming from its face?"

"I think they're called whiskers. I have no idea what they are for."

"Maybe he can sense things like you or Saesee can?"

"She."

Saesee stopped in the doorway of the hanger to see his two fellow Masters sat on the storage boxes around his starfighter. A tiny furry creature with pointed ears and those whiskers was sat between them, reaching up with a clawed paw to try and bat at the green tentacles it could almost reach. "It's definitely a she." Kit Fisto chuckled at the creature's antics.

"Very well." Agen Kolar was watching it intently, and did not look up. "Is _she_ yours, Saesee?"

The creature had abandoned its game upon seeing the Iktochi and sprung off the crates, choosing instead to gambol up to Saesee and push its head up against his legs with a purring sound beginning to grow in her throat. His cheeks burning but his lips set in the typical frown, Saesee dared to look up at the other two; Kit Fisto was beaming broadly, his gaze on the animal, while Agen Kolar was unsuccessfully fighting off a smile as well, looking instead at the Iktochi.

"How can she be mine?" Saesee walked towards his starfighter, trying to avoid an undignified trip as the creature followed suit and attempted to weave around him. "Jedi have no possessions." He deadpanned. Kit's smile did not lessen as he hopped off his seat on the crates. The Iktochi wavered, his arms folded defiantly, but the animal made the decision for him. She bounded forward and jumped back up to where she had been sat before, and looked back expectantly. _You sitting or what?_ Her eyes seemed to say. And so Saesee sat down on the crates where the Nautolan had been; Kit himself moved so that the trio of Masters were in something of a triangle and made to perch down too. "Don't sit on my starfighter." Saesee glanced up sharply as his hand had made to stroke the creature's nutmeg-coloured fur.

"I wouldn't dream of it." Kit quipped, instead sitting cross-legged in front of the ship. Agen was watching the creature with curious eyes as she nuzzled into the Iktochi's hand, her purring louder than before.

"She may not be yours." He commented, "But I think you are hers, my friend."

"I found her taking shelter in the cockpit. She was cold. And thin." Saesee said. He remembered it well, the rain outside had been drumming on the metal roof overhead, and had almost drowned out her mewling cries when he had lifted her out of his pilot's seat. How quickly she had quietened though, wriggling and turning only to snuggle into the surprised Jedi's thick robes. She was doing much the same now, crawling onto the Iktochi's lap and trying to get comfy amongst the folds of his cloak.

"And so you adopted her." Agen finished, an amused smile twitching on his lips, "Or perhaps the other way around."

"Something like that." Saesee muttered, returning to gently stroke the animal's head. Purring again, she settled down on his lap but pushed her head up into his hand, seemingly unbothered by the Iktochi's claws. "What are you two doing here anyway?" Saesee looked back up at Agen, who held his hands up in mock surrender.

"Ask Kit, he was here first."

"Now don't go accusing me of anything!" The Nautolan laughed. "I came looking for you, Saesee, I thought you might be fixing something. Then this friend of yours leapt up out of the cockpit and came to say hello!"

"When I arrived they seemed to be getting on quite well." Agen said amusedly. "Getting on meaning she was sat on his head."

"She was comfy! Who was I to move her?!"

"Why did you look for me, Fisto?" Saesee interjected, frowning in confusion. There was a pause, and Kit cocked his head in some thought. His head tresses twitched independently.

"I'm not sure." He replied mildly, "I just sensed you might need-" The Nautolan broke off as the furry creature stood on Saesee's lap, stretched, then leapt onto the ground and padded over to him, sniffing at his outstretched hand curiously. "Hello, little one."

"Be careful. She's looking to pounce on your tentacles." Saesee warned, sensing the animal's intentions. Kit chuckled and nudged his tresses over his shoulder and out of sight. Dejected, the animal licked at his hand then padded back over to the boxes, jumping up again and fixing lantern-like eyes on Agen. The Zabrak looked more than a little apprehensive as she advanced unblinkingly.

"What is she doing?"

"Smelling you." Saesee's words did not seem to reassure Agen, who seemed more alarmed at the tiny creature. A minute smile twitched on the corner of the Iktochi's lips. "Relax." He said.

"She has claws."

"So do I, you do not fear me."

"That's different." Agen muttered. Yet the little creature had no such reservations and was quickly nuzzling up to the Zabrak, the purring sound recommencing as she found a comfier seat on his lap.

"Agen, I think you've made a friend!" Kit laughed at his gobsmacked companion. Saesee nodded.

"She likes you." He agreed. Throughout all of this, the impossible had happened; his two fellow Jedi and his little friend had succeeded in making him feel better. The weight of the argument upstairs felt as light as a cloud that rolled off his shoulders as he watched Agen tentatively begin to stroke the creature's soft head and he listened to Kit's cheerful chatter. In the past, he never would have imagined companionship such as what he shared with these two to be so pleasant. So useful. And something so… treasurable.

 _Maybe friendship isn't so bad after all,_ Saesee thought, and the strange fluffy animal with pointed ears and odd 'whiskers' just yawned.


	3. Power of the Dark Side

**Power of the Dark Side**

Obi-Wan Kenobi shifted in the chair, tugging his wrists again at the metal bindings that cuffed him to the icy metal seat. No use. He couldn't strain too much against the bonds either, his chest throbbed with pain where he had been dealt a savage kick from one opponent that had sent him flying into a wall. The last thing he could remember was laughter, deep and cackling and downright terrifying, or maybe he had been hallucinating by that point. Looking around him, Obi-Wan began to reach out with the Force into the shadows, trying to locate anything-

"Enough!" A fist struck the Jedi across the face, hard, and Obi-Wan looked up from it, his cheek burning, to find a pair of amber eyes burning into his own. It was a dark-skinned Zabrak, his lips curled into a snarl and his fists with bloodied knuckles clenched. His long hair hung around his face, curtaining his visage and casting further shadows across it that was only pierced by the smouldering of his eyes as they practically _blazed_ with fury. He spoke- or rather, snarled- again, "Answer me, Jedi! What were you doing in the west Outer Rim?"

"It was a-a reconnaissance mission." Obi-Wan groaned. "I was ordered by the Grand Master-"

"Lies." The voice came from the shadows behind the Zabrak, who did not turn. Obi-Wan stared into the gloom, and from it emerged a second figure, hooded and walking with slow yet steady steps. "Lies." His voice was softer. Yet when the hood was lowered and Obi-Wan found himself staring at an Iktochi with horns sharpened to deadly precision, claws on his hands that were poised to tear skin, and eyes that held the fiercest flames, the Jedi felt the pit of his stomach drop. The voice was not so soft anymore. It hissed like a viper in a poisonous well. "Liar!"

"Liar!" With a roar the Zabrak echoed his companion and stepped forward, his fist raised to strike; Obi-Wan braced himself for the impact- that didn't come. Opening his eyes, Obi-Wan saw the Iktochi had merely raised a clawed finger to restrain the Zabrak, and now he stepped forward. The Jedi couldn't help pressing himself further back in his chair as the Iktochi crouched in front of him, so close Obi-Wan could smell what he hoped was not rotting meat, and stared dead into his eyes.

 _Oh no_ , Obi-Wan thought, his eyes flicking to the knifelike horns, _natural telepathy_. Desperately, he tried to re-enforce his mental barriers, tried to call on the Force. But even as those amber eyes burned it felt like ice was pricking Obi-Wan's pupils then further, freezing over his defences and encroaching deeper and deeper into his thoughts, handling and discarding them like shards of glass flung back into the Jedi's mind that stabbed and bled and-

"So." The Iktochi straightened up and Obi-Wan slumped forward, gasping for breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding. "You came here to find…" the fiery eyes narrowed. "Us."

A growl sounded from the Zabrak's throat and his fists clenched once again, muscles rippling under the dark tunic he wore.

"Well he's found us." He growled. "And he will not live to tell the rest of them!"

"Patience, my friend." The Iktochi's voice reminded Obi-Wan of snakes once again. The amber eyes of the horned being now flicked upwards, to somewhere above the Jedi's chair. "I said _patience_."

A blade of plasma materialised into the air barely centimeters from Obi-Wan's face. Choking, he tried to press away, but he couldn't and the lightsaber was so close there was a _hiss_ as the hairs of his beard began to smoulder and singe with the proximity. One shift and he would be dead.

"Must I? Really?" This new voice broke off- into laughter. It had been no hallucination then, cruel and low the peals of laughter right in the Jedi's ear began to bounce off the walls until the room rang with it. Obi-Wan could not turn his head, but he couldn't help but jolt when something long and thin slid over his shoulder and pressed almost too gently at his forehead. Another thing slithered and rested on his cheek. "Oh I see!" The newcomer crowed gleefully, "Master Jedi is _scared_!"

The lightsaber moved, now no longer threatening to slit his throat it was instead pointed right at his face, and the third figure now moved into Obi-Wan's peripheral vision. He suppressed a shudder as the tentacles dropped from around his face. For that's what they were; the Nautolan wore his head-tentacles unbound and they practically writhed freely around his head, twitching and gliding as they sensed every change in the Jedi's body. His teeth were pointed and sharp, visible because his mouth was stretched in a gleeful, ecstatic smile, made no less horrifying by his eyes. The Nautolan's eyes were not amber. They were black, so very dark and hollow that Obi-Wan felt he was looking right through his head to the shadows behind him.

"You're scared of us." The Iktochi nodded in satisfaction.

"And so he should be." The Zabrak's expression had changed and his voice was softer. Where the snarl had been there now only rested a leer, vicious and promising of nothing pleasant to come. The Nautolan was smiling wider too, baring his razor-sharp teeth, giggling slightly, and his lightsaber moved, swinging casually far too close to Obi-Wan's skin for comfort. The Iktochi only tilted his head, and he flexed his clawed hands, flaming eyes boring into the Jedi's skull.

"And so he should be…"

Obi-Wan could not supress the shudder that ran down his spine as the trio stepped closer.  
He had a very bad feeling about this.


End file.
